


It Started With a Cab

by findmethestars (Atunenamedclara)



Series: Swanqueen Week Winter 2017 [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Alternate Universe - Music, F/F, swanqueen week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 16:49:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9500774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atunenamedclara/pseuds/findmethestars
Summary: Emma Swan, an up and coming rock musician, accidentally manages to get on the wrong side of Regina Mills, a successful classical music player. Taxi cabs and twitter feuds make for an interesting first meeting.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I know nothing about music, but I thought I would pretend I did anyway.

Emma groaned as she flung her arm out wildly and hit the snooze button for the third time. The sun was pouring through the window, a rare bright day in the middle of January. Stretching sleepily she grabbed her phone off the shelf next to her bed and unlocked it, squinting at the unforgiving glare of the screen.  
She rolled her eyes as she realised that at 8:42 she was already running late for her first appointment of the day. Regardless, she tapped on the calendar app, running through her schedule for the day as she rolled out of bed and padded towards the bathroom.

**9AM - hair appointment**  
**10AM - meeting with manager**  
**12PM - Lunch with band**  
**2PM - Recording studio**

Emma Swan was an up and coming musician, lead singer of her soft rock band Yellow Deathtrap and noted as the "next big thing" in several music publications. With under a month until the release of their second studio album and the announcement of a nation wide tour, Emma was spending every day, morning and night, in meetings and recording studios. She was so busy she sometimes thought that she might forget to take time to breath, but she wouldn't have it any other way.

Twenty minutes later saw Emma running out of her Manhattan apartment, coffee in hand, sunglasses on head and phone pressed to her ear as she ran through changes she wanted to see on the promotion posters.

"TAXI!" She yelled as she saw the bright yellow car approaching her. She was late as it was, but she was going to be even later if she didn't manage to grab a ride in the crawling mess that was New York rush hour.

The car slowed and approached her, much to her relief, and she moved towards it quickly, dodging commuters as she walked against the flow. However, just as she reached out to pull open the door, a perfectly manicured hand moved hers none too gently out of the way.

"Excuse me, I think you'll find that this is my cab" an impatient voice spoke somewhere near the vicinity of Emma's ear and she snapped her head round wildly, furious with whoever was trying to mess with her before she'd had her coffee.

A woman with short dark hair was staring down at her, perfectly painted lips pressed thinly together. Her black trench coat and sky high stilettos were the perfect contrast to Emma's leather pants and biker boots, but her frown matched Emma's as they glared at each other with their hands on the cab door.

"C'mon lady, I'm in a rush!" Emma pleaded as she made a move to open the door.  
"As am I. And I can assure you that wherever you need to go, it is not quite as important as where I need to be."  
"Wha-?! How can you-" Emma's words dried up in her mouth as she looked properly at the woman standing in front of her. Oh crap. She knew this person.

Regina Mills was a classical music player who had risen to fame several years previously in the New York Philharmonic. Now it was rumoured that she was recording her first solo album and it was going to be up there with the greats of the 21st century classical music industry.

Emma had been a massive fan (a secret which she would take to the grave) something which she had always suspected was more to do with the fact that Regina Mills was a beautiful, openly bisexual latino woman in a traditionally uptight industry than it did with actually liking classical music.

And in all the times that she had envisioned herself meeting Miss Mills, none of them had looked anything like this.

The cab driver blared his horn impatiently, causing both women to jump as they realised exactly where they were standing. Emma saw an opportunity and, blessing her quick reflexes, pulled open the cab door and jumped inside.  
"See ya around" she shrugged unapologetically as the car began to pull away into the flow of traffic, leaving a very angry Regina Mills standing on the sidewalk glaring after her.

\---------- ---------- ----------

After the cab incident, the rest of the morning had gone smoothly, even the meeting with her take no nonsense manager had gone surprisingly well, an unusual turn of events given Emma's headstrong nature. She regularly locked horns with Mr Gold, and it was a rare day when she didn't.

Lunch over, Emma and her band mates walked the short distance to the recording studio, taking opportunity of the sunshine and quiet midday streets.

Ruby Lucas who doubled as lead guitarist and social media manager, peered at her phone as it began to vibrate enthusiastically.

"Careful Rubes" Emma laughed as the tall brunette narrowly missed walking into a street lamp "Everything ok? Is it your ex again, because I swear to god if she tries to-"

Ruby waved her off impatiently "No, no it's nothing like that. Um...that violin chick just tagged us in a tweet and her followers are going crazy, um-"

Emma's mouth fell open, dread pooling in her stomach "You mean Regina Mills, don't you?" She asked quietly, her smart retorts lost to her for once.  
Ruby nodded "Mmm." She's saying she had some run in with you this morning? Why doesn't this surprise me?"  
"Well what does it say?!"  
Ruby hummed as she scanned the tweet "Umm... _So sorry to fans left waiting in the cold this morning. Had an unfortunate run in with @Yellowdeath, blame her, not me."_

August Booth turned around from where he had been moonwalking backwards across the sidewalk "Em? Something you want to tell us?"

Emma growled and kicked at a loose pavement slab impatiently. "God!" She shouted "I beat her to a cab, that's all! Why does she feel the need to publicise everything? She's not a freakin Kardashian!"

"Did you um, know her before?" Ruby looked confused.  
"No. Starting to wish I didn't know her now either." Emma muttered and rubbed at her head tiredly. She pulled out her phone and fired off a quick message to her PR manager, asking him to draft an apology tweet to an over dramatic violinist with a superiority complex. Just, not worded quite like that.

As the large purple logo of the studio appeared in the distance Emma felt herself relax. She would force herself to put this whole unnecessary mess out of her mind and enjoy their recording session. Then later in the day Ruby would put out a tweet about how they were "so excited to be back in the studio" and a small crowd of fans would gather at the entrance for them to meet and talk to after their session. That was always Emma's favourite part so all she needed to do now was forget about Regina Mills and everything would be fine.

\---------- ---------- ----------

About an hour into their session, just as Emma was directing August to try a slightly altered rhythm with his saxophone, an overworked receptionist knocked on the door.  
Emma pulled off her headphones irritably. She hated being interrupted when she was in the flow of things, especially when it was probably about the fan mail she usually picked up at the end of the session. If it could wait until later, she didn't want to hear it.  
"What?" She opened the door reluctantly.  
"Um, Miss Swan there's been a problem. Somebody else booked the studio and, well, you need to leave so they can have it." She shrugged, trying to look sorry but all she managed to do was look vaguely bored.  
"Are you SHITTING me?!" Emma's voice rose angrily.  
"I'm afraid not, Miss Swan." A cool voice came from down the hallway as a woman with short dark hair and perfectly painted lips came into view.  
"You?!" Emma hissed, anger turning into fury as she looked at the woman who seemed intent on ruining her day, if not her career. "Is this still about the damn cab this morning?!"  
"No, of course not. I am not quite as petty as you believe me to be, Miss Swan. This is simply a hideously unfortunate mistake. More unfortunate for you though, it would seem."  
Emma cocked her head to the side "Oh yeah? How?"  
Regina smiled thinly, all lips and no teeth "well dear, you're going to have your studio time cut short, not me. But of course you'll be repaid in full. Good day."  
Regina made a move to walk past her into the room but was stopped by Ruby as she moved towards her, holding up her guitar free hand "wowowow lady! We paid for this room for another two hours! First come first served!"

  
Regina rolled her eyes without ever taking them off Emma and took another step into the room. Emma growled as she moved towards her, eyes alight with anger at the thought of the time they were wasting.  
"C'mon Regina, really?! Look, I'm sorry about the cab, I really am. It was an asshole move but I hadn't had my coffee and I was late for an appointment and I've been working on tour stuff for weeks and I mean, I don't even know you! We work in two separate parts of the music industry, what are you trying to do?! Start some sort of petty feud?"  
Tears of frustration pooled in Emma's eyes and she wiped them away furiously. Stupid, stupid reflexes, she hated crying when she was angry.

"No! I..." Regina's voice tailed off as she looked at Emma. Her eyes opened wide as her mind ran through the events of the day "Oh! Oh no! Emma I'm sorry, I didn't even think about how I had worded that tweet!"  
"Wait...what?" Emma stared at her dumbly.  
The brunette nodded vigorously as she pulled out her phone and opened twitter "Yes! look. It's an ongoing joke between me and my fans. I'm notorious for running late to everything and it's become somewhat of a habit for me to tweet vague explanations for it to them when I'm late for fan events. I had a signing this morning, you see, and I was half an hour late. God, Emma I'm so sorry!" She did actually look apologetic as she placed her phone back into her purse. Emma titled her head and looked at her. She did seem to be telling the truth and, well, the tweet had been a little out of the blue, it would make more sense if there was substance behind it.

"And...the recording studio?" She asked hesitantly.  
"A mistake, honestly" Regina looked at her earnestly.  
Emma stared at her, taking in this new expression which she hadn't seen before. She had known Regina the musician for years from afar, a cool face in an orchestral pit, or sultry and mysterious staring down at her from the New York Philharmonic billboard. She had encountered Regina the stressed business woman, all flying jabs and impatience, dark lips and smoky eyes twisted by annoyance. But this seemed to be Regina...for real. Her eyes were wide and her deep red lips were slightly open as she searched Emma's face for understanding.  
Emma realised that she was staring as Regina raised an eyebrow waiting for her response.  
"Oh!" Emma started "sorry, um, yeah, I guess mistakes happen. So...yeah" she mentally kicked herself in the face as she searched her brain for actual words to form a sentence.  
"Forgiven then?" Regina asked hopefully, fiddling with a button on her crisp shirt.  
Emma's eyes snapped down automatically, looking at the sharp lines of the collar and the slightly straining button underneath. She swallowed, mouth dry as she worked up the courage to ask Regina Mills, long time inspiration, short term pain in her ass and life long crush, a question that was playing in the front of her mind.  
"Forgiven" she said at last "on one condition..."  
Regina looked at her curiously "go on...?"  
"When my band are finished with our recording session, you come out for a drink with me?"  
The brunette woman met her gaze, eyes filled with something unreadable. Then, just as Emma began to ever regret asking her lips split in a wide smile and her eyes glinted with mirth.  
"Of course Miss Swan. Just as soon as I finish my recording session."

Emma Swan wouldn't have cared if she had sung every single note flat for the remainder of the afternoon, because standing in the corner, watching her every move with twinkling eyes, was Regina Mills.

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to leave kudos and comments! I'm aiming to upload a fic for each day of Swanqueen Week so watch this space!  
> And come say hi on twitter, @findmethestars!


End file.
